Nobel winner reunited with sister lost in WWII [beautiful story!!]

AP via YahooNews ^ | Fri Jun 6, 2008 | AP Staff

[Enchante]

SALT LAKE CITY - University of Utah geneticist Mario Capecchi got a bonus after winning the Nobel Prize for medicine last fall: He learned he has a younger sister.

Capecchi, 70, and half-sister Marlene Bonelli, 69, met last month in northern Italy. It was technically a reunion, but really more of an introduction; they were too young to remember when they were separated in the early days of World War II.

Bonelli had long believed that Capecchi and their mother had died in the war, he told The Salt Lake Tribune.

Capecchi's mother gave birth to Bonelli in 1939, when her son was a toddler. Lucy Ramberg, a left-leaning American artist who was imprisoned for much of the war, handed over the baby girl to friends living in Austria, where Bonelli still lives.

Bonelli recognized Capecchi's name after he won the Nobel Prize in October and informed the media in Austria that the famous scientist was her brother. The newspaper Dolomiten sent Capecchi photos of Bonelli.

"Looking at the pictures, it was obviously my sister," Capecchi said, noting her resemblance to their mother.

[Enchante]

remarkable story --- half-siblings separated for life, she thought he died during WWII, brought together by announcement of his Nobel Prize......

[CGASMIA68]

WOWWWWW

[jalisco555]

An amazing story. Shows how the war still reverberates today, so many years later.

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Dr. Mario Capecchi, holds the copy of 'The Dolomiten' that displays the story about him meeting his sister, Marlene Bonelli, for the first time, Thursday, June 5, 2008 in his office at the University of Utah, in Salt Lake City. Capecchi, 70, a geneticist at the University of Utah, returned to his native Italy last month and met with his half-sister, who believed Capecchi and her mother had died during World War II. Then Marlene Bonelli saw the headlines when Capecchi won the Nobel Prize in medicine last fall.

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Mario and Marlene